Donald Trump Hijacks Talking Heads’ ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Video

Whatever one might think of Donald Trump's politics or public persona, he's certainly one of the more facially expressive major political figures to come along in some time — which helped make it possible for an enterprising video editor to splice Trump into moments from the video for the Talking Heads classic "Once in a Lifetime."

Assembled by the video mashup artist known as Swede Mason, the surreal edit incorporates audio and video from Trump appearances as well as footage of his face that's been imposed over Talking Heads singer David Byrne. It's all fairly clever, but for those not inclined to find Trump amusing, it may represent a troubling normalization of his actions and policies more than anything else.

Byrne, for one, seems unlikely to find the humor in seeing Trump "performing" one of his best-known songs. He's written repeatedly and at length about his issues with the Trump administration, and although his first post-election essay made an effort to understand Trump's voters — whose support he suggested stemmed from "white middle class Americans ... experiencing a lack of mobility and opportunity in the economic spheres where they were previously the privileged and entitled majority" — Byrne has since taken a more forceful stance against the agenda Trump has pursued in office.

Particularly troubling to Byrne was a raft of funding cuts to arts agencies that were bundled into Trump's budget proposal earlier this year — a reflection of misplaced priorities that Byrne criticized in another online essay. "I might actually agree that some of it is indulgent and silly, but I would argue that there is undeniable and indisputable monetary and social value to the nation as a whole in the publicly funded arts," he argued. "It is by far one of the best investments the government can make."